First of all, I am not in the market for a lead-acid battery for any of my vehicles right now. While the LEAF does not properly charge the 12-V battery in our usage pattern, I hope and expect to achieve a very long life with the OEM battery by occasionally charging it with the BatteryMinder 1500. That battery is 4.5 years old today and I would not be surprised to still be using it five years from now. I routinely get 7-8 years from Pb-acid batteries in our other vehicles in this climate with very little attention. We'll see how it goes.

As far as the Li-ion 12-V replacements go, I fully expect they will eventually win the 12V market, but it appears those products have some maturing to do. In addition to the comments provided by LeftieBiker and GerryAZ, I see several issues with Li-ion 12-V replacements:

- High-quality ones are very expensive.- Low-priced ones do not appear to have much capacity, as GerryAZ pointed out. That's needed in the LEAF if the vehicle sits for a while.- The battery you linked only has a six-month warranty. Pb-acid batteries warranties have gotten much worse in recent years, but none are that bad and some are still much better.- Many small Li-ion batteries today are manufactured from the cells from used laptop batteries. If you purchase 18650-size cylindrical cells from anyone other than the top-tier suppliers, then you are likely getting old laptop cells with new ends. They typically have a capacity of only about 1000 mAh, in spite of labels which indicate as much as 6000 mAh. I suspect some of these Li-ion motorcycle batteries are made from old laptop cells, as well.- Personally, I have never gotten more than about six years out of ANY Li-ion battery, but they are clearly getting better as time marches on. In the early 2000s I remember some Li-ion batteries which failed to perform after only about six months of use. In contrast, the iPad 1 I am typing on right now is about four years old and the battery still has plenty of capacity. I expect it will last for several more years with proper care. I have three identical HP laptops here from 2009. One still indicates battery capacity above 70%, but the other two are below 40% and in need of replacement.- If automotive OEMs could purchase Li-ion 12-V replacement batteries with better performance/cost ratios than their Pb-acid counterparts, they would do it. Tesla is a perfect example. I have read that the Model S eats Pb-acid batteries for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and the battery is not so simple to replace. Clearly they need a better solution in that car, and it would seem that application is not as price-sensitive as the one in the LEAF. If Li-ion can address the issues there, then I expect to see one specified in the Model X. (Anyone know?) Otherwise, perhaps we need to wait a bit longer for the technology to mature.

Li-ion chemistries with very long life and lower costs are becoming available now. If they can be coupled with true-automotive-grade power electronics they should eventually make affordable, high-quality Pb-acid replacements. For now, I get very good service from Pb-acid batteries.

69800 wrote:I am starting to lean toward the $99 L-ion ... It says this on amazon.

IMPORTANT MAINTENANCE INFORMATIONThese batteries only need charging if they drop below 50%, they have a built-in meter that will tell you the health of the battery with led lights. Battery Tender has some chargers that will work fine with this battery. HOWEVER, you may NOT use a charger/tender if it has an automatic "desulfation mode",

Evidently these batteries can sit at a slightly discharged state forever which is what the leaf does. And at that price. You may not ever have to charge it but I would check it once a month to see what it is doing.

I already commented on this battery on page 16 of this thread. Basically, if it doesn't list amp-hours, it's probably not a good choice. It may work fine starting motorcycles but not for supplying days worth of dark-current to a modern automobile.

Been seeing a new charging routine. Now that's it's freezing and my garage has gotten down to 40 degrees I have noticed that the normal ramp down from 14.5 volts doesn't happen. Haven't had any long trips but have noticed this for at least 15 minutes. I'd guess the change is temperature related and not the result of my battery condition changing as Another local LEAFer reported their 2013 was doing this for 40 minutes.

Seems to me like it would be best to get an Optima yellow-top deep cycle battery. I have the red one in my gas car and its been great so far. Got a deal on it and it was only 20 bucks more than a local discount store battery.

My new-to-me 2013 S leaf left me stranded the other day, at home thankfully, due to this issue. Using the references here I was able to charge the 12v battery and clear the codes with LSP.

I have a couple thoughts on why/how this happened, maybe some of you could share some insight or venture a guess with me?

I had left my OBDII wifi thing in there all the time, and LSP was set to stay connected. Last night LSP updated and I looked at the changelog and it said it now includes a message regarding battery life and "stay connected" feature. They didn't specify which battery: mobile device, 12v, traction? Come on guys.

It has been near freezing and the car had the climate control timer on, was plugged in with charging set to no timer/100%, and sat for about 3 days in that state before I went out to it dead. I have since read about leaving it plugged in, which is apparently a no-no as it will kill the battery via no DC-DC switching? Or something. This is ridiculous. I love this car, but if that's the case, I can not wrap my head around that one. Unplug the car so the battery doesn't die? UH, wat?

So, I will no longer leave it plugged in, I won't use climate control timer unless I go out and set it to run right before I leave, and I've unplugged the OBDII and turned off "stay connected"

I think the prudent thing to do would be replace the 12v battery. It looks like a group 24 size case to me, but I haven't found a reference to it. Does anyone have any insight into which battery format fits the tray and such? I will probably go Optima Yellow or similar as the previous poster says.

I do these systems for a living in the marine trades, which is one reason I'm struggling with the charging protocol. I can fix it to work the way I want, but I would like to know what it is doing. My theory is that there is a voltage sensitive relay that connects the traction and 12v batteries when the 12v needs charging, with the exception of the aforementioned lockout period. Oh, maybe I get that. If it were to bring the DC-DC online during traction charging, the sense circuit that tells the traction charger what to do would be reading the load from the converter and responding to that instead of battery state. Hmmm, perhaps. Secondly, in my systems the VSRs are always triggered by the lv side, so I imagine that just like in my boats, once the 12v battery is compromised, it is in Low Voltage Lockout, whether by design or the logic goes haywire at low voltage which is what usually happens with my VSRs. Once they drop low and are disconnected, a physical recharge via jumpers or an external charger is the only way to get them back.

Okay, that was a brain dump of my theory, but maybe it will get the discussion going. Anyone have any more insight into all this?

Go 12 volt lithium and don't look back. Replaced my 12v lead when it was going bad earlier this year (2013 model also) and now on two winters with my 12 volt lithium and not a single blip regardless of charging cable plugged in for days or not. I can come out in below freezing weather and the battery still has a 13.5 v reading.

knightmb wrote:Go 12 volt lithium and don't look back. Replaced my 12v lead when it was going bad earlier this year (2013 model also) and now on two winters with my 12 volt lithium and not a single blip regardless of charging cable plugged in for days or not. I can come out in below freezing weather and the battery still has a 13.5 v reading.

That's a pretty great review. Do you have a link to a battery of the size and type you purchased, please?